Family Secrets
by kathmolko
Summary: This wasn't my first or favourite story, but I thought it would be a good place to start. Feedback would be appreciated. Basically, a death in the Ketchum family causes Ash's simple life to change, and there is no happy ending.


FAMILY SECRETS

What do I have with writing about the stars pasts?

FAMILY SECRETS   
The Story of Ash Ketchum

Ash lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He was thinking of his father. He'd been doing that a lot lately and it bothered him. He'd hardly even known his father when he'd left. His mother, Sara Ketchum, often fondly spoke of his father as if he was some kind of pokemon hero. She had never mentioned her relationship with him, however. Ash could only guess the past. There was a knock at his door.   
"Come in" he called absently, a little cross from being interrupted from his thoughts. His mother entered the room, crying softly. Immediately Ash's whole mood changed. He motioned for her to sit down on the end of his bed. She obediently sat at the foot of his blue bed.   
"What's up?" he said in his fake sympathetic voice   
"It's...it's..." Sara couldn't bring herself to speak   
"Yes?" Ash urged her on gently   
"It's DARREN!" she wailed   
"Huh?" Ash didn't know any body called Darren   
"I always meant for you to meet...I'm so sorry, Ash...it's too late for that now" his mother sobbed loudly   
Ash had no idea whatsoever of what his mother was rambling about   
"He's...he's gone. Oh how could I have...been so SELFISH!...If I hadn't have...this would have NEVER happened...who to blame?...In two days...Vermilion City...I regret...too young..."   
Ash placed a comforting hand on his distraught mother's back. This small gesture seemed to strengthen and calm her.   
"Ash I need to talk...It should have been both of us, your father and I...we never planned it like this...he said he'd be here to tell you..." Sara was out of control again   
"What Mum? Tell me what" Ash was scared. He felt so helpless.   
"I was sixteen...too young...Darr..." her voice trailed off   
Ash found himself calculating in his mind. His mother was thirty-two. She was sixteen sixteen years ago.   
"I just wasn't prepared...too late...abortion..."   
Oh shit, Ash thought, He was placing each piece of the puzzle together. From what he could work out his mother had had a child-he was assuming Darren was this child- at sixteen years of age and it had been too late for an abortion...   
"You put Darren up for adoption?" he asked in a small voice. His mother nodded stiffly   
"He's gone..." she moaned.   
Ash looked at her and he was filled with anger, hatred. He had a brother and he had never been told! He'd always wanted an older brother. To stuff around with, when Gary teased him he could get his brother onto him...God what had he missed out on?   
"Get out of my room" he sneered, his voice wavering   
"Ash no!" Sara sobbed   
"Just get out" he shook his head "Don't SPEAK to me again!"   
His mother burst into a fresh batch of tears. He felt no sympathy this time, just burning, consuming rage. Sara fled from the room in tears.   
Ash too was crying, over what he'd lost. He'd had an older brother, sixteen, and he hadn't been told until it was too late, Darren was dead. Even though Ash had never seen Darren, never met Darren the words held a frightening sense of realism. He felt as though he had always known his brother. He couldn't bring himself to forgive his parents. Ever. He held his head in his hands. Why? Why me? I'm only eleven, I shouldn't have to deal with this. Ash crumbled onto his bed and cried himself to sleep.

Ash didn't say a word all the way through the long trip to Vermilion City for the funeral. He just stared sullenly out the window of the car. When they had arrived at the funeral site his mother said "Your father will be there"   
Ash just opened the door and slunk out. This was all he needed, another parent he couldn't forgive, except he hardly even knew his father. He and his mother began the silent walk to the service.

Ash sat quietly through the whole service, staring at the intricate stained glass windows. He hadn't even batted an eyelid when his own father had stepped up to the podium to talk about a son he didn't know. His father looked so much like he did that Ash felt ashamed. He didn't want to look like a man that abandoned his two sons and wife. When the tributes of Darren's loved ones had ended the people all filed out of the church, passed Darren's coffin to pay their final respects. Ash stopped and looked at the photo that was framed in roses. Darren looked more like his, their mother. He sniffed and walked on, becoming lost in the sweeping cloud of black.

The burial was horrible. Ash's father, Glen Ketchum, had walked up to him.   
"I know this is a bit of a shock to you, son" he had begun, but Ash had cut him off.   
"Don't EVER call me your son" he exclaimed forcefully and he had run off and watched them lower his brother's coffin into the Earth. Without meaning to he fell asleep. Tired from all the stress he was struggling to cope with.

He awoke as they were driving home, aware of another presence in the car. There was Glen, in the front, next to his mother, grinning like anything.   
"Your awake s-Ash. Your mother and I have agreed to, well we're giving ourselves a second chance, eh? You know, get it right this time. We were so young back then..."   
"Some things never change" Ash said bitterly.

He was right. His father left three months after Sara fell pregnant again.

THE END   


This was pretty stupid, I know, but I am in a really sadistic mood so I thought I'd write a story with no happy ending, where-ever you look.   


LOVE   
MEW2


End file.
